Mood Piece: A rather subdued Budget presentation by Telangana FM

As the clock past 11 am, the Opposition, which is not big in numbers in Telangana, started to ask, when will the State Deputy Chief Minister, who also holds the Finance and Energy portfolios Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu, will come to present the Telangana annual Budget for Financial Year 2025-26. 

A little birdie said, he will start speaking at 11:07 am, as seven is his number. Well, one really doesn’t know that, but dot at 11:07 am the Finance Minister started to speak. It was a rather quiet and matter of fact Bhatti speaking this time. The energy levels seen when he presented his first Budget was missing. 

The maximum noise came from the Opposition, The Bharat Rashtra Samithi formerly known as Telangana Rashtra Samithi from chanting Govinda-Govinda for the schemes or sectors which did not get enough attention to Bogus-Bogus to the proposals which the current Government claimed has succeeded because of them.

However, the speech had substantial quotes from Mahatama Gandhi, B R Ambedkar as well as Famous poet Sri Sri’s song “Kuti Kosam, Kuli Kosam…….,”, which Bhatti said aptly summed up the condition of Telangana’s youth.

Bhatti, who himself called the Budget a perfect balance between welfare and development – much like a twin engine system—driving the chariot of good governance forward with exceptional momentum, in his speech didnot deviate from the subjects for over an hour fifty minutes almost. 

What was interesting to see was that towards the second half of the speech even the Opposition had lost its steam. There were no quirky comments from either sides. 

A thing that was slightly different this time was around was absence of KCR (Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao), founder and leader of BRS and leader of Opposition, who had dismissed Bhatti’s first speech of about two hours in two minutes. This time the task belonged to Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao, commonly known as KTR, who dissected it in about 20 minutes and termed it as a Budget of “Broken Promises & Rising Debt”. 

• Also read: Telangana Budget 2025 Highlights: ₹3.05 lakh cr Budget prioritises farmers, rural development and economic expansion